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Riga Shakya is a PhD candidate in Sino-Tibetan history in the History-East Asia Program at Columbia University. His interests broadly span classical and contemporary Tibetan literature and the history of Sino-Tibetan relations. Riga’s doctoral research centres on the emergence of Tibetan political biography during the Qing period, with particular attention to the literary works of the Tibetan cabinet minister and polymath Dokhar Tsering Wangyal (Mdo mkhar tshe ring dbang rgyal). He is currently working on the first English language translation of Dokhar’s autobiography Reflections of a Cabinet Minister (Bka’ blon rtogs brjod). Riga holds a BA in East Asian Studies and Religious Studies from the University of Toronto, and a certificate in Tibetan Language and Culture from Tibet University, Lhasa. He is also an avid translator of contemporary Tibetan fiction and poetry.